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Busboys and Poets: everyone welcome
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06/17/09 11:01 AM ET
In 2005, Anas “Andy” Shallal, an Iraqi-American “artist, activist and restaurateur,” opened Busboys and Poets, hoping to establish a meeting place that would conjure the unique legacy of the U Street Corridor once known as “Black Broadway.”
“Andy rooted this place in societal justice,” said Maurice Chase, a Busboys manager. There are no titles among the management, and everything is decided by consensus.
Busboys is a microcosm of the U Street renaissance, drawing together black, white, gay, straight, young and old alike. The name is a tribute to Langston Hughes, who was working as a busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel in the 1930s when he slipped three of his poems to a patron. The guest was the famous wordsmith Vachel Lindsay, who proclaimed in the papers the next day his discovery of a “Negro busboy poet.”
Derrick Weston Brown, Busboys’ current “poet-in-residence,” can be found in a corner of the library, scribbling prose in Moleskin notebooks. “U Street has always been a crossroads where people can share their work,” he said.
Election Day was a testament to the diversity of Busboys and Poets. “On Election Day, this place was packed [with] every different type of person you can imagine — homeless people, professionals, college students — all silently watching the TV,” Chase said. “They were all unified.”
Busboys also frequently has groups that could be as different as night and day, according to Patrick Law, a manager. “Last Saturday, the Beltway Atheists came in just as the Washington Catholic Archdiocese was hosting an event on atheism in the Langston Room,” he said. “I tried so hard to get them together, but it didn’t work out.”
For more information on Busboys and Poets, visit www.busboysandpoets.com .
“Andy rooted this place in societal justice,” said Maurice Chase, a Busboys manager. There are no titles among the management, and everything is decided by consensus.
Busboys is a microcosm of the U Street renaissance, drawing together black, white, gay, straight, young and old alike. The name is a tribute to Langston Hughes, who was working as a busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel in the 1930s when he slipped three of his poems to a patron. The guest was the famous wordsmith Vachel Lindsay, who proclaimed in the papers the next day his discovery of a “Negro busboy poet.”
Derrick Weston Brown, Busboys’ current “poet-in-residence,” can be found in a corner of the library, scribbling prose in Moleskin notebooks. “U Street has always been a crossroads where people can share their work,” he said.
Election Day was a testament to the diversity of Busboys and Poets. “On Election Day, this place was packed [with] every different type of person you can imagine — homeless people, professionals, college students — all silently watching the TV,” Chase said. “They were all unified.”
Busboys also frequently has groups that could be as different as night and day, according to Patrick Law, a manager. “Last Saturday, the Beltway Atheists came in just as the Washington Catholic Archdiocese was hosting an event on atheism in the Langston Room,” he said. “I tried so hard to get them together, but it didn’t work out.”
For more information on Busboys and Poets, visit www.busboysandpoets.com .
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